


Athadra: The Commander of the Grey in Ferelden, the Champion of Redcliffe, and the Slayer of Loghain

by Riptide



Series: Sanguinarius Sanctus [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-06 23:48:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riptide/pseuds/Riptide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fairly in-depth character study for the protagonist of 'Tainted', which sets the foundation for the 'Sanguinarius Sanctus' series of Dragon Age stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Athadra: The Commander of the Grey in Ferelden, the Champion of Redcliffe, and the Slayer of Loghain

**Author's Note:**

> Since this is a character study of the main character of 'Tainted', it should go without saying that there are some fairly major spoilers for that story all over the place. If you're interested, you can see the original story here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/433598
> 
> There may be some minor spoilers to the sequel, called 'Birds of Prey', which is currently being updated. Those interested can find that work here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/872978
> 
> Based upon the questionnaire adapted from fearliath’s 30-day Warden Challenge, here: http://fearliath.tumblr.com/post/45356630544/as-promised-the-30-day-warden-challenge-for (tumblr currently on hiatus)
> 
> All Elvhen terms are based on 'Katie's Best Guess at Elvhen', which can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/359253
> 
> Trigger warning for slight references to sexual assault.

**Full Name** [Why did you choose that name for them? Name meaning?]

Athadra Surana; once she was taken to the Circle, her surname was stripped as a way of removing any non-Circle identity from her.  She’s gone by just her first name ever since. “Athadra” is an old-fashioned Dalish name, a rendering of _Eth’adahl’ara_ , which roughly translates as ‘One who wanders safely through the forest’.

 

**Age**

Nineteen at the time of Duncan’s recruitment.

 

**Birthday**

30 Drakonis, 9:11 Dragon

 

**Gender**

Female

 

**Race**

Elf

 

**Class**

Mage

 

 **Background** [What was their life like before they were recruited by Duncan?]

Athadra was born on the northern outskirts of Lothering, to a family of elven tenant farmers headed up by her grandfather, an exiled Dalish mage. Her parents were not mages themselves, but Athadra presented her magic early, and her grandfather taught her to concentrate it in ways that were not immediately obvious to mundane observers. In this way, she was able to spend the first ten years of her life outside the Circle; she learned the ways of the farm and the forest, swam in a stream during summer, and made friends with a family of human apostates. On the Summerday of her tenth year, Athadra lost her temper when a boy in Lothering teased her and one of her friends for being mages. She was caught by templars, but her friends escaped. At the Circle, Athadra spent nine years keeping to herself, studying magic, history, and languages. She made three escape attempts, once getting as far as Kinloch Hold, and only the great potential she showed kept her from getting made Tranquil. On the eve of her recruitment into the Wardens, she was betrayed by one of the only friends she’d allowed herself to make during her time in confinement, and that led her to suffer greatly before Duncan’s intervention.

 

**Appearance**

Athadra is short for an elf, definitely shorter than almost any human she’ll come across. She has wiry black hair that reaches past her shoulders when it isn’t tied back. Her skin is dark brown, but her irises are completely colourless, so her eyes appear a deep crimson, coloured by blood.  Her armour actually serves to conceal much of her bulky muscle and scar tissue, and she wears enough weaponry that even people unfamiliar with her legend tend to steer clear.

[What is the one thing your Warden hates about their appearance?]

Before she went to the Circle, Athadra had no issues with her appearance. Once imprisoned in the Circle Tower, Athadra began to hate her eyes, since they made the templars and other mages suspicious. After she became a blood mage, and especially after she became the undisputed Commander of the Grey and the Champion of Redcliffe, she began to make peace with her eye colour. Now, in private moments, Athadra sometimes doesn’t like how muscular her lifestyle and duties have made her.

[What do they like about their appearance?]

Athadra enjoys the respect that her scars usually earn her.

[How is your Warden viewed by others physically – are they beautiful/handsome? Are they average? Hideous?]

Athadra would have been considered graceful, perhaps even beautiful, once. After years of fighting, she’s become hard and strong, with noticeable scars on her face, torso, and limbs. Most who see her probably find her a bit hard on the eyes.

[What kind of clothes do they like to wear when they’re not fighting?]

Athadra is always fighting or preparing to fight. She always wears her distinctive Warden-Commander armour except when she’s sleeping, when she doesn’t wear anything at all, or when she’s on a boat, when she wears the underclothes to her armour. The only exceptions are when she needs to be inconspicuous, and then she’ll wear simple trousers and tunics in hopes that she’ll be overlooked.

[Do they wear any jewellery?]

Yes; Athadra wears a single pewter ring at all times. Many years after the fall of the Archdemon, she also begins wearing an earring.

[What does their armour look like?]

Heavy silver plate, with a three-paneled chestpiece embossed with a blue griffon that’s also displayed at the joints of her gauntlets and greaves. Lobstered gloves armour her wrists and the backs of her hands and fingers, but leave her palms and most of the insides of her fingers bare. A blue surcoat with silver nodes forms the underpadding. The armour itself is enchanted, so that any damage the metal takes will repair itself over time. Another consequence is that, when it is not being worn by the Commander of the Grey, anyone else that touches it will make it grow unbearably hot. If the unauthorised contact comes from a non-Warden, the flash is quick enough that it risks serious injury to any would-be thief.

[What weapons/spells do they use?]

For arms, Athadra carries a two-handed broadsword across her shoulders. The steel of the blade is veined with blue-green lyrium which helps her channel her magic. She only unshoulders it when it seems the fight cannot be one otherwise. Usually she fights with dual longswords that she wears at her hips or, more rarely, twinned daggers that are crossed at the small of her back. Each boot also carries a trio of stilettos, just in case. Though she uses a warrior’s weapons, Athadra is very much a mage; she uses ancient Dalish magic to enhance her muscles, but she also specialises in spirit magic and blood magic.

[Have they any noticeable scars?]

A great deal. The most obvious are on her head and face; a trench runs laterally across her right cheek, a gift from Jarvia, and her right ear and the right side of her neck were badly burnt by the Archdemon. Further, ten deep grooves cross-cut Athadra’s back, from a whip’s lashes; at her front, a jagged cut runs crossways from her left collarbone over her sternum to end beneath her right breast, a relic of her confrontation with the Mother; her flanks sport a pair of puckered indentations each, earned facing the Witch of the Wilds in dragon form; the top of her left thigh holds a wicked burn from the toxic spit of a wyvern. Her arms, legs, and torso also have countless other more minor scars, picked up in the Deep Roads and in the Anderfels and, later, in the Free Marches.

[Do they have any tattoos? Why/why not?]

Athadra has no tattoos, partly because once she had the time and the ability, she had very little unscarred flesh left to put them on. Mainly, though, she would feel that getting any tattoos would make a mockery of her Dalish roots.

 

**Personality**

Athadra’s difficult to get to know well, and even harder to like. She has subordinates and acquaintances, but only two or three people that she would ever consider friends.

[List at least 5 personality traits your Warden has.]

One of my readers has described Athadra thus: “Bigoted, hypocritical, selfish, power-hungry, manipulative, deceitful.” I would say that she’s also suicidally brave, fiercely loyal to the few people she considers friends, and protective of the people under her command.

[What are your Wardens biggest flaws/weaknesses?]

Especially during the Blight, several experiences made Athadra violently paranoid of templars and men in general, and it’s taken her many years to go beyond that trauma so that she isn’t tempted to kill strangers just for looking at her.

[How does your character change/develop during the Blight? Do they become more compassionate? Darker? Do they grow up?]

Athadra definitely gets darker during the course of the Blight. She starts out as quiet, bookish, and solitary; she’s suffered from low-level prejudice from being an elf and some fairly major discrimination for being a mage, so she’s mistrustful of humans and the Chantry, but she isn’t without compassion. After her recruitment, then Ostagar and its aftermath, her trauma and her mission warp her until she’ll do just about anything to survive. By the time Athadra ends the Blight, she’s become a terrifying warlord beholden only to her duty to fight the darkspawn; everything else she does, whether it’s viewed as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ by civilians, is undertaken toward that singular aim.

[Does your character fit any cliches?]

She probably fits a few that are difficult for me to identify. It’s likely that Athadra fits the trope of a victim who becomes an aggressor.

[What habits/quirks does your character have?]

She drinks quite a bit of alcohol and uses blood magic recreationally. She sometimes enjoys taking advantage of her reputation by scaring the shit out of new recruits for the amusement of herself and her Senior Wardens.

[What would your character’s Hogwarts House be? Why?]

Slytherin. She’s smart and brave, but she isn’t above getting her hands dirty, and she probably thinks that mages are just a little bit better than other people, all else equal.

 

**Romantic Interests**

Athadra pursued a tumultuous relationship with Morrigan during the Blight, and she also developed a mostly-physical interaction with Zevran.

[What attracted them to their romantic interest?]

Athadra was attracted to Morrigan almost from the first time they saw one another. Morrigan is beautiful, exotic, intelligent, and free in all the ways that Athadra had been before she got caught by the templars. Athadra was also able to trust Morrigan earlier and more completely than any of her other companions (except possibly Sten) for a variety of reasons.

[What do they have in common?]

They are both apostates, more-or-less, though they reject that assignation since they both deny the sanctity of Andraste and the existence of her Maker. They each value survival higher than personal satisfaction, and they desire power as the surest means of survival. But they also respect their power and enjoy the knowledge that their freedoms allow them to pursue.

[What do they like to do together?]

Learning the history and languages of Thedas. Also making fun of Alistair. They study a bit of magic together, and also enjoy crafting potions or doing other meditative activities in silence.

[What do they argue about the most?]

There are a few topics that they both try to avoid speaking about, mostly around commitment and “the future” that Athadra isn’t certain will ever come. Their one big fight is about whether Athadra loves Morrigan, and Morrigan cannot accept her answer.

[What do your Warden’s other companions think of their relationship?]

Alistair is worried that one or the other will try and turn him into a toad. Leliana thinks that it makes for a romantic tragedy and has composed more than one ballad about the Warden’s forlorn love. Zevran’s opinion of Morrigan sharply declines after the major conflict, and Oghren spends a few lonely nights in his tent thinking far too much about the Warden and Morrigan together. Sten and Garahel have no discernable opinion.

[What was their first kiss like?]

The first contact of their lips was quite passionate, after a series of more tentative kisses to Morrigan’s arm and neck. It was a bit awkward, but both of them were a bit too enthusiastic to worry about that, just then.

[Are they in love? Explain why/why not]

Their companionship grows into mutual affection and, eventually, to love...though both want to deny it, for various reasons. Eventually, even though they cannot stay together, they admit their feelings.

 

 **Sexuality** [What is your Warden’s sexual orientation?]

Athadra spends most of the Blight as emotionally homosexual and physically bisexual, but as the years pass, she becomes more thoroughly bisexual. She’s also a dominant sadomasochist; anyone who finds themselves in her bed will have to expect at least some pain, and will be expected to inflict pain in return.

[Describe your Warden’s past lovers, if any]

She had no lovers before Morrigan. Eventually she has liaisons with Zevran, Isabela, and a few others.

[How does your Warden feel about sex before marriage?]

Athadra doesn’t recognise marriage as an institution worthy of her consideration, since her political power is vested in her position as Commander of the Grey. She doesn’t care to judge anyone else for their sexual behaviour, either.

[Do feelings/commitment need to be involved for your Warden? Or are they okay with a fling?]

The fewer emotions involved for Athadra, the better for everyone, as far as she’s concerned. It takes a great deal of time and many physical encounters for her to develop an emotional connection with someone.

[How does your Warden feel the first time visiting the Pearl?]

Annoyed that she’s having to run errands for Sergeant Kylon. But her annoyance quickly evaporates.

[How did your Warden handle the encounter with Isabela? Was anyone else involved?]

Athadra, Isabela, and Zevran get to know one another quite well aboard the Siren’s Call. At this point she doesn’t know if she’s going to get sentenced to hanging by the Landsmeet, and figures that she has nothing else to lose by indulging herself.

 

 **Spirituality** [What does your Warden believe? Do their beliefs and practices cause conflict among their companions? How do their beliefs guide them morally?]

Athadra is irreligious; today we would call her an atheist. She believes that the Fade is a separate realm that intersects with Thedas on a certain level, but that operates under its own rules. She doesn’t think that mundanes “go there” in their dreams (or that anyone goes there when they die); instead, she believes that death is the annihilation of the self. She thinks that the Chantry is a temporal institution interested in power in the living world, based upon a pernicious and superstitious cult, with a probably-mythical figurehead in the form of Andraste. Even in a world of magic, Athadra is something like a “materialist”, in that she doesn’t acknowledge a soul/mind that can survive independently of the physical brain, and she does not believe that the world was made by a conscious entity.

This causes a great deal of interpersonal conflict with Alistair and Leliana, who think that Athadra is crazy and/or pitiably mistaken. Morrigan has no major objections to this philosophy, obviously, and Zevran can keep his philosophical opinions separate from his friendship with the Warden. Athadra’s worldview does not prejudice her against the Qun in the same way that an Andrastean might, which allows her to cultivate a close friendship with Sten, despite her magic.

Athadra’s morality is quite a bit different than most people in Thedas would be used to. She finds it repulsive that so many people believe that ‘good’ means whatever a priest claims the Maker meant it to mean. She thinks that she has but one life to live; during the Blight, she believes that if she dies, there will be nothing standing between the Archdemon and the rest of Thedas, which motivates her to survive at almost any cost. Athadra also thinks that the people under her care should be free to live as they see fit, so long as they don’t do too much harm to other people. She knows that she isn’t a ‘good person’ and she doesn’t expect to be admired, but she knows that someday she will have to die in order to make the world a safer place.

 

**Moral Alignment**

Athadra is something of a mix ‘Chaotic Good’ and ‘Chaotic Evil’ that does not quite equal ‘Chaotic Neutral’. She does despicable things for her own selfish reasons, but also in order to increase the security and freedom of people whom she’ll never meet.

 

 **Viewpoint** [Describe how your Warden feels about the dwarven caste system, human nobility, and elven Alienages. Describe your Warden’s race/social class and how they feel about that.]

Athadra thinks the dwarven castes are archaic and insane, given Orzammar’s extremely tenuous position and the observable fact that a person’s skills are not determined by their great-great-great-grandmother/father (even if that person is a dwarf). She feels that the casteless dwarves are a great pool of talent that Behlen is finally beginning to exploit. Similarly, Athadra doesn’t think that human nobility should be hereditary. She views nobles as warriors and arbiters of justice, and as such, they should have to prove their competence in order to achieve their stations. She thinks that Alienages only perpetuate elven poverty and discrimination, relics of the Chantry’s criminal destruction of the Kingdom of the Dales, which she thinks should be carved out of the Orlesian Empire and restored as an elven homeland.

Athadra herself was born in the countryside, in an elven family that wasn’t quite Dalish but wasn’t too far off. She thinks the only reason elves let themselves be corralled into Alienages is because the humans would slaughter them otherwise, which she learnt from her parents and her grandfather. Her identity as an elf isn’t as important as her identity as a mage, but Athadra is not ashamed of where she came from.

[How does your Warden view mages? Blood magic? How do they feel about the Circle?]

Athadra is a Grey Warden first and foremost, but she is undoubtedly a mage. She thinks that magic is neither a gift nor a curse; it brings advantages, but also great liabilities and responsibilities, over and above the social situation in modern Thedas. The history of magical supremacy from Tevinter is horrible, in her opinion, but it does not justify the perpetual enslavement of mages elsewhere in Thedas. Athadra has evidence that blood magic is a different phenomenon than mana-borne magic, and she believes that blood magic was originally forbidden because it cannot be blocked by templars. Once it was rare enough, it became a tool that demons could use to seduce mages who were weak-willed, or simply desperate, enough to listen. Thus the prohibition became self-justifying, in her mind. Even so, for most of her time in the Circle, Athadra was never tempted by blood magic, mostly because she thought that a demon’s influence was required. When she had her regular magic stripped away by an opportunistic templar, however, her opinion changed; now, several years as a blood mage have changed her outlook on the practice, in ways that she may not even be fully aware of. She views the Circle as a prison, and thinks that mages should have the right to live as freely as anyone else...which includes the freedom to fail, and the responsibility of being punished for crimes they actually commit, rather than their potential to do so.

 

 **Family** [Describe your Warden’s family members and their relationship to your Warden]

Athadra’s closest family relation was to her maternal grandfather, a Dalish mage called Denath’ena. He identified her as having magic almost from birth, and took care to guide her education for the first ten years of her life. They shared stories and walks in the woods as well as magical lessons. As far as Athadra can tell, her grandfather died at some point after she was taken to the Circle, but before the onset of the Blight.

Athadra’s mother is a crafter called Maegellyn, and her father is a farmer named Banlenos Surana. They loved her as much as any two people could who spent fifteen hours a day working to survive. From her brief investigations, Athadra eventually learns that they left Lothering shortly before the Blight, likely after Denath’ena died; she doesn’t know where they wound up, or if they’re even still alive.

 

 **Happily Ever After…?** [How does the Blight end for your Warden?]

Athadra tricked Alistair into undertaking Morrigan’s ritual, even though neither Athadra nor Alistair particularly wanted him to bed the witch. Athadra herself took the final blow against the Archdemon, just in case the ritual failed; afterward, Morrigan disappeared as she’d promised to, and Athadra took her parting with a great deal of difficulty. Alistair was crowned King of Ferelden, and he promised to have an independent panel review the governance of the Fereldan Circle, though this winds up taking many years to come to pass, and the outcome isn’t very satisfactory to anyone involved.


End file.
